American Thoracic Society conference day 1

Thursday, May 14, 2015

From British Thoracic Society Chief Executive, Sheila Edwards, at the American Thoracic Society conference

We had a smooth flight over and were confronted with some new technology on landing. Self service immigration stations! I was quite pleased to have managed to get through without any problems....especially as several of the UK's big respiratory brains were observed to be having trouble. However, we still had to be quizzed by humans and wait over an hour for our bags to come through because of a fault on the conveyor system. I thought a few parallels with tech in health?

I am here to help with the British Meeting Point (tea, vicar?) and also for some meetings with ATS leaders, but I also hope to learn a lot from sessions about advocacy and technology. I want to blog about how Respiratory Futures can make the most of initiatives being reported over the next few days, and how others can make the most of Respiratory Futures too, so hope to spread the word about this initiative to colleagues from the UK.

If you are at ATS why not come to the Meeting Point in the main exhibition hall between Sunday and Tuesday. Have some Yorkshire tea and some friendly chat in the middle of your busy schedule.